1841 $10 Liberty Head Eagle NGC MS61 - Significant Gold Eagle Conditional Rarity!

1841 $10 Liberty Head Eagle NGC MS61

     We at AUCM are proud to offer a truly rare gold coin, one that is found in the finest collections: an 1841 $10 Eagle graded NGC MS61. This is a conditional rarity of the early Liberty eagle series, and is rarely presented in grades above XF. David Akers writes, "It is obtainable in VF or EF but specimens better than that are very rare. Two or three uncirculated specimens are known or reported..." This piece would be the perfect addition to a type set of difficult to acquire gold rarities from throughout American history.

     Discussing the design found upon the Liberty Head eagle, numismatic scholar and art critic Cornelius Vermeule writes, "Gobrecht executed new designs (1838) for the $10 denomination in gold, a coin known as an eagle. The bust of Liberty with an inscribed coronet in her hair that graced the obverse was to remain on the gold coinage until 1908. The reverse differed little from the design in use since 1807 on the $5 gold piece save that the wings of the eagle spread from one edge of the coin to the other. Commenting upon the inspiration for Gobrecht's Liberty, Vermeule writes, "The motivation for this Roman head of Liberty stems from vast, varied neoclassicism of the Napoleonic era. Typical of the source is a small painting ... by Jacques-Louis David's contemporary Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Phythagoras or The Earth is Round, painted about 1800. ... [On the painting it] is the diademed or coroneted, white-robed, seated female that should attract our attention, for she is related to the heads of Liberty on our 19th century gold ... coinage."